1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing device which can enhance the user's convenience while reducing unnecessary power consumption.
2. Background Arts
Conventionally, printing devices are often provided with a so-called power-saving function in order to reduce power consumption. In a printing device, the state in which a printing operation can be performed is referred to as the ready mode in which power is supplied to most of the units such as the controller, the panel or the like.
However, always setting to the ready mode significantly increases power consumption of the printing device. Therefore, the printing device transits into a sleep mode (power-saving standby state) if no print job has been received for a certain time period or the sleep mode transition button of the printing device is operated by the user. The power-saving function of the printing device is realized by mode transition between the ready mode and the sleep mode.
On the other hand, there is known a so-called authentication print function which temporarily stores a print job received from an external terminal without printing it at the time of reception, and prints it later based on a print instruction from the user. According to such an authentication print function, a print job is sent to the printing device together with authentication information set by the user, for example. Accordingly, the print job will not be started in the printing device until the authentication information is input. As a result, a situation can be avoided in which a printed matter having highly-confidential information printed thereon is left on the paper output tray and seen by someone else.
A printing device provided with such an authentication print function is immediately set to the ready mode upon receiving an authentication print job during the sleep mode. However, wasteful power may be consumed if the printing device is left without an input of the authentication information. According to the Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-191747, therefore, the following process is performed if an authentication print job is received with a setting such that no printing will be performed until a predetermined authentication input is provided during the sleep mode.
In other words, transition to the ready mode occurs to perform printing if a predetermined authentication input is provided, whereas the sleep mode is maintained if the predetermined authentication input has not been provided. On the other hand, transition to the ready mode occurs upon receiving a print job for which a print method other than the authentication print has been set (hereinafter, referred to as normal print job). According to the prior art, occurrence of wasteful power consumption can be prevented in the printing device provided with the authentication print function.